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I just dont know what to do anymore, I've been playing sc2 since it first released and I've yet to escape the horrors of gold league. I just dont know what to do so I'm asking for help. What made you guys get good at the game?

Few easy pointers which got me from low gold/silver to diamond pretty fast:
1) Stopped doing team games (still do occasionally with friends, but mainly 2v2 if so).
2) Saved up time so I could do 5-10 games once I started playing, rather than 1-5 games (also you can squeeze in more games if you 1v1 rather then 4v4..).
3) Started watching replays and mainly focusing on macro and mechanics. What really changed things for me was removing most of my supply-blocking. This seems so innocent in-game, but has an ENORMOUS impact later on...

I agree with this. Getting to masters does require a lot of time and effort, but it is far, FAR from being impossible. In fact, it's so doable, it might even be your mother. Just kidding. But seriously, don't waste time doing team games. It's fun, and helps a little bit, getting your more familiar with the game in a relatively uncompetitive environment, but it's a whole different breed from the 1v1. Brute force like 10-15 1v1 games, and you'll see a difference in your play, I guarantee it. Just don't get frustrated, and view each game as a separate entity.

As long as you are not high master or grand master you should watch your replay every now and then (the more the better). If you are in a lower league it dosent matter if you win or loose, there are still plenty of things to look out for in a replay. If you watch every single one you will get tired and bored of SC2, so what you should do is try to watch like every 3rd game (no matter if it was a win or a loss) and look for 4 simple things.
1) Did you float minerals/gas before 10 minutes? A common mistake is to take gas too early without spending it on anything. Saving up gas early is usually not a good idea, as you normally need more minerals.
2) Did you get any supplyblocking before 100 supply? Especially below 44 supply is VERY bad!
3) (This is very important) Was your saturation good? Did you have 16 workers mining minerals + 6 (3 on each) mining gas on all three bases? Saturating main base and natural base is at least a minimum.
4) How was your scouting? Did he take his 3rd without you knowing? Did he tech for stuff you did not expect? Did he manage to surprise you even tough you could have seen it on the minimap?

Take quick notes to each point, e.g. giving your self a grade so its a bit comparable. Then play three games where you focus on the 4 points, esp the one that was worst. Then watch a replay and see if you have improved.

Don't be mad if you loose to a cheese. Its part of the game, but those noobs usually don't know how to play. Just shake it off and see it as a build order win, and hardly any skill involved.

The way I improved, starting in silver league, was to pick one build and only use that one build. The consistency of build let me learn the other things; like not getting supply blocked, scouting, spending money, etc etc, without having to worry about my build. In terms of builds, you can pretty much do mass roach/infestor in all matchups.

For me I sort of just played the game and gradually got better at macro and such and before I know it I was Diamond. It was the Diamond to Masters jump that required a sold 6-7 months worth of dedication where I had to solidly think about my build in each match up and how to deal with certain builds or pressures.

The thing is, you don't even need to think in terms of builds right now, rather think in terms of "what do I want to get" this game. "what is my end goal and how can I get there".

Even as a Masters protoss I don't actually have any solid, set in stone builds. My timings may vary slightly based on if I get my gases earlier or later in a game, ect. However I have a very solid plan on what I want to do.

For example, against Terran I want to do a 1 gate expand, and from there go up to 3 gate robo and scout. With that scouting information I decide if I want templar or colossus, build one or the other, get double upgrades, get a third, and build the other tech that I'm missing. I want to get to a late game chargelot/templar/colossus/stalker army, eventually expanding more if I need to.

That is my "plan" for PvT. You notice I don't worry about things like "get a robo at 4:30" or "expand at 30 supply". Instead, I constantly make workers, make a gateway when I have 150 minerals, make a pylon at 16, make a cyber core after gateway, make a zealot+stalker and then expand when I have 400 minerals. And sure, for this opener I do get stuff at almost the exact same supply every time... but the point is it's the idea that matters, not the hard build.

So that is my ultimate advice to lower league players. Way too often I see them fret about not getting their expansion down at the right supply or something when you forget that these builds (with supply numbers) are meant for perfect macro. You don't have perfect macro, and it is perfectly ok if you don't get your expansion at the right supply.

What I find is my major problem is that I have a exectution I do against each race. But for instance once one thing goes wrong like I face a protoss army with 200/200 roaches and then get half of them force fielded and killed by a collusses I freak out and forget all my injects, and just make stupid mistakes for the rest of the game until I eventually lose

There's no advice someone can really give if you are freaking out and making mistakes because of nerves. You really just need to find some way to be calm about the entire thing.

In your example if you have 200/200 roach your goal is to either do damage RIGHT THEN or use them defensively to get up to your hive tech.

Really if your macro is on point than you can just 200/200 roach and go kill someone by a-moving.

If you feel like you don't do well with taking mid-game skirmishes than don't go for a composition that does that. Get roaches and fast infestors, and then turtle up to brood lord/infestor. Playing safe many times is a lot easier in lower leagues than playing aggressive, because chances are your opponent won't be very good at being aggressive themselves.

But yeah, maybe just try and adjust your plan so you don't frequently run into situations where you're going to be freaking out about something. Like I said, safe is the way to go. I played safe all the way up to masters as protoss, and it really only got super difficult for diamond-masters because players start getting really good at finding holes in your defense.

I think this is the same problem that many of us have. It's not a question of just macro - we know not to get supply blocked, to keep building workers, to expand. But when to drop that third expansion? Once I finish a basic opening, then what? What's the best way to transition? When can I drop evo chambers? How can I use infestors most effectively? I can watch vods all day and still not have good answers to those questions when I'm not looking at an omniscient view of what my opponent is doing.

If thats whats stopping you from advancing, then I think you just need to try new things each game. If you feel you arent being supply blocked and can hold most early attacks, start expanding earlier or teching faster. The only way to see if you can do something is to try it. There is no golden rule to when to expand or tech. Each game is different - thats part of why I imagine you keep playing.

Sure, you are going to lose sometimes when trying new things, but you will also learn which tactic's work and which are foolhardy.

I think part of it is that I'm not really trying too hard to get better myself. I'm just having fun playing random. If I was going to play more seriously, I'd focus on a race and getting certain matchups down. 3 strats is a lot easier than 9.

...There's no use practicing a lot if you don't know what you're practicing. The key is to learn how the game flows. There's something referred to as "macro," which is the overall picture of everything that's happening. Boiled down, it is constantly making workers, always making army units out of your buildings, and not getting supply blocked. All the fancy micro tricks in the world don't matter if you don't have these things nailed.

It's up to you if you'd like to do a 1base all-in, 2base all-in, 3base turtle, 9 base clusterfuck and anything inbetween. It helps to pick one, that is effective, for each race, and practice practice practice

You can really outmacro your opponent and just mass roaches until platinum, maybe diamond. If you're still in gold, improving macro will always be the most important thing to do.

No amount of strategy I can tell you will matter in light of sub-optimal macro. You might take some build order wins but are you really improving at the game? You can do nothing but 6-pool and you might win enough games to get promoted but did you improve?

So if you're still in gold focus on perfecting your mechanics - injects, supply blocks, staying calm under pressure (keep calm and inject, i seriously tell myself that as a mantra in engagements), being safe to cheese, scouting, having detection, etc...

All of that applies to every matchup and if you're on top of those at a diamond level you'll be in diamond with minimal amount of applied strategy.

I don't know if your final figures are correct but I see your point. However, for someone in the gold league learning, I think more emphasis should be placed on not missing any workers and not getting blocked, FAR before "make your depot 4 seconds faster." Ultimately it will be good to implement, though!

I already understood your point. None of this matters if you're getting supply blocked and missing production cycles. Seeing how he's asking how to learn how to play, what do you think applies more to him?

I played protoss for the longest time, but 2 months ago I decided to play Terran and now I'm playing Zerg in the beta. The best way to learn the race is to choose one build order for each MU and then practice only that BO for a couple weeks, then switch to new BOs. I should specify that they were strategies + BO, like my massive two base mech push vs Protoss or constant bio only pressure against Zerg. I always pushed out at the same times, same BO, etc. These were BO that stretched to 14 minutes, not just an opening into a FE or whatever.

Improving is about consistency. Of course, mastering the basics like not getting supply blocked are important, and as zerg, good scouting is a must to know when to drone. Plus mastering injects. I use camera hotkeys to inject, because they are useful in themselves (where as base cycle cam is only useful for injects).

Just "playing a lot" doesn't = improvement. This game does not make your faults obvious, especially to lower leagued players. It doesn't alert you that you've stopped worker production (or even stress that you need constant workers). It doesn't alert you that you have stopped unit production (or even stress that the production facilities are idle). It doesn't alert you that your mineral bank is far to high (or even say that it shouldn't). These components are not the obvious solutions to lower league players, as a lower league player will generally diagnose their problem as "messed up my build," "didn't micro good enough," or any other thing that has such a small influence on the game at that level.

TL;DR - Practicing a lot is a waste of time if you don't know what to practice. Practicing smart is a much more efficient use of timem.

Just getting the basic mechanics down can be a huge improvement, which only comes through playing a lot. Sure, lower-league players won't know that macro is basically the single-most important thing in the game, but surely they'll figure that out eventually through enough play? I mean, I'm in Bronze (mostly because I don't play nearly enough - probably 30 games total this season), but keeping bank low through unit production and investing in economy/upgrades appropriately seems fairly obvious. But I also watch a lot more Starcraft than I play.

That's how I moved from bronze to plat/diamond. I'm not great, no, but by seeing how other people succeed I found some success for myself. What part of it in particular do you find so repugnant? I only used 1 control group for the longest time, and now that I am forcing myself to use multiple I've seen a big improvement in my play. Since this guy is gold, I'm guessing that his biggest improvements will come from better macro. Hopefully increasing his APM and using hotkeys/control groups better will resolve that.

Let's get in to that. You say to mimic the pros, but you stated yourself that you use one control group.

You say spamming apm will make him better? A player with 50 APM, but does 50 meaningful actions per minute, is MUCH better than a player who just spams.

It's agreed that improvement comes from better macro, which you never stated in your orignal post. However, ask yourself, how do you improve your macro? It is not just by watching a pro. Pros aren't a tutorial for a learning gamer.

Also, you lost your credibility when you said you're "plat/diamond." You can only be one thing.

My 1v1 is plat, my 2v2 random is diamond, my 4v4 random is diamond. I could be in every league simultaneously if I had that many multiplayer teams.

I said used* to use one control group. I've gotten better habits, and improved because of it.

I don't want to argue with you, I just don't think that my advice was the worst ever. I watched a lot of pros play and saw what they were doing that I wasn't. I tried to emulate them so that I was doing those things, and have ranked up steadily.

Also, I consistently see that my APM remains higher in games that I spammed during the start of. Throughout the replay, my APM remains slightly raised. In the first moments of a game, where there is so little to do, spamming can help your hands get ready for the more action-filled sections later.